The woman stepped into the exhibit hall, blades in both hands. She knew these men, afterall, she had once been their comrade. She fought side by side with them, she killed with them, all in the name of Lord Blackwind. She had believed in what they were doing, she thought that together they were ushering in a new golden age, where mankind would reap the benefits of a world without war or hunger. A world where everyone truly was free.
That all changed when she saw what Blackwind truly had in mind for this world. She got a glimpse of a world where humanity was enslaved, its only purpose to serve its master, a being thought of as a living god on Earth. She saw a world where people were slaughtered in the street for no other reason than to serve as a reminder as to who was in control. People rounded up and exterminated by the hundreds because they or somebody they knew may have spoken out against him. And that wasn’t even the worst. She knew that she would gladly die before she would allow that twisted nightmare to become a reality.

So she left his ranks. They had hunted her for months, determined to make her pay for her betrayal. They had hounded her relentlessly until she had returned to Lost Haven and enlisted the aid of one of the city’s rising heroes, a man named Icon to help her stop Blackwind and his men.

Together, they did stop Blackwind’s associates from bringing the tyrant into our world, but not before the entire metahuman population of Nautican Island was wiped out.

But that was a long time ago, and the world was a vastly different place. She refused to sit idly by and wait as Blackwind and his men scoured the globe searching for an artifact, or some mystical relic with enough power to allow the scourge to cross over into our plane of existence. So she went all over the world recruiting people with amazing abilities to help her in her fight. They too, had searched for these artifacts, some mystical, some alien, some wielding unknown powers and collected them, attempting to destroy them before Blackwind’s men were able to get their hands on them.

And that search had brought her the this museum. She needed to get to the skull before them. And she had failed. They had breached the display case when the old security guard had stumbled upon them, however, they had as of yet not removed the skull from the base on which it sat.
“Good to see that Blackwind is still holding your leash, Forsaken.” She said as nonchalantly as she stepped closer to her three foes.

“Haze...I suspected that you might try to stop us. But you’re too late, we have the skull...and now, we have you.” Forsaken said as he held out his hand, palm up. In the air just inches from his hand, a fireball began to form. At first, it appeared as just a spark, but it quickly grew until it was the size of a basketball. And before Haze could utter another word, he hurled it directly at her head.

Just as the fireball was to reach her, Haze dematerialized, allowing the burning globe to pass right through her. With a blink of the eye, she rematerialized, launching herself at her former comrade. However, he sidestepped, and hit her in the throat with a knife-edge chop, sending her crashing to the floor.

Forsaken glared down at her, preparing another fireball, but she quickly jumped up and swept his leg out from under him, putting him on his back.

Richter rushed forward, but sent staggering backward as a jolt of electricity hit him square in the chest. However, the bolt of electricity didn't stop the massive villain for long. As soon as the shock of the blast had passed, he moved toward the diminutive young blond who had struck him.

Grinning, he clapped his hands together, sending a shockwave directly at the woman. When the shockwave hit her, she was sent flying through several display cases, sending splintered glass flying in every direction, until she finally crashes hard through the wall, finally coming to a rest buried under a layer of broken glass and plaster in the adjoining exhibit hall.

As Haze and Forsaken square off in front to the display holding the Tikal Skull, the android Helos had gotten the case open and had removed the skull from its base.

"I have the skull. It is time to go." The android said in a cold, metalic voice.

Haze turned to see the android holding the skull, and felt a sick, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She bounded after Helos, only to find her self stopped in midair. For several seconds she hung in the air motionless, before being turned to once again face the man known only as The Foraken, who held her in his telekinetic grip.

"Not this time." He said as he sent her crashing hard into the wall.

***

Some time Haze was awoken by someone forcefully shaking her. She looked up and as her eyes slowly adjusted she saw 2 women standing over her. One was Synergy, who she had been working with for the last several years, and the other was Starlight, a member of the Guardians.

"You're late." She curtly said to Starlight as she picked herself up off of the ground and got to her feet.

"I got here-" She was cut off.

"I told you the situation, and all the Guardians could send was you?"

"If you haven't noticed, The Guardians aren't exactly a cohesive unit these days. Blue Blur and Kensei are MIA, Archangel hasn't exactly been himself lately, and the kid is off doing his own thing. Right now, I'm all there is."

Hearing enough, Synergy cut in.

"Look, we can get into this later, we have bigger problems right now, they took the skull."

A pendulum swings, leaving a gentle tick, counting off the waning seconds until the Vigilante is supposed to call back in.

“Sir” starts Alberts, “he should call in within the next 3 minutes with a sitrep.”

“Then he gets three minutes.” The Director responded with a blank expression, doing his best to hide signs of concern. “We’re not going to short-change a field agent who puts his life on the line.”

“Shouldn’t he at least have called in to let us know he’s still alive? He’s playing very tight with time…” Alberts probes.

“He said 15, he gets fifteen. He’s on a stealth mission, he probably can’t call in because he’s holed himself up somewhere in a secure location and doesn’t want to risk giving away his position by making the slightest noise calling in before time.”

Ignorant to all, the pendulum swings.

* * * * *

Moloka’i, Hawaii – A cliff face

“F***! F***ing c*ck-sucker son of a b**** f***ing F***!” The Vigilante exclaims, dangling over the precipice.

“…ch f***ing F***!” the cliff’s echo replies.

The man in black swings back and forth, arms waving frantically at the cliff’s edge.

“Do you need us to pull you in?” Haliaka asked.

“No. Stay there. The last thing we need is for you to get bitten now by a straggler when I’m trying to swing back. Stay in the tree.”

The Vigilante makes a large arcing swoop at the crag on top. And frantically scrambles for a grip, coming up short again.

“Dammit! Right, Screw this!”

He swings back out again and holds his hand over the gun, muttering something to himself.

Well before the top of his return swing he hits a button on the grapple gun and the line is cut, sending him hurtling into the cliff face. The five in the tree gasp as the man in black disappeared from sight.

Interminable seconds passed and a low moan rolls towards the five hiding in the tree. All muttering stops, replaced with silent prayers.

<“He had all of the guns!”> hisses Uleki in native tongue.

Haliaka shushes him, but it is too late.

The groaning grew louder, until footsteps are heard. Steps growing more pronounced as they hear the crunching of broken twigs and other debris fallen from their tree-haven go under a fetid foot. Then a hand comes into view, grabbing high up the tree trunk. Kanani can no longer hold her fear and lets out a shriek. This only spurs the ghoul on further, it’s groan growing louder and more determined. It won’t be long and this one zombie will attract the attention of the others, and they will swarm this tree and take them through sheer weight of numbers. Already they can hear the groans of this one zombie leading to the grunts and growls of the others.

Moans and groans come from this hungry deadwalker beneath them, enciting more growls and grumbles and profanity from the others, unseen…

Profanity..?

P-TAFF! P-TAFF! P-TAFF! P-TAFF!

The unsilenced Beretta fires two shots into the tree trunk, one into the zombie’s torso… it shrugs off with complete disdain and a fourth which pierces and bursts it’s decaying skull. The man in black slumps over exhausted, his legs still dangling over the cliff with a disturbingly morbid sound echoing from his voice modulator as he gasps and gulps in deep breaths of air.

“Goddammit… Can’t leave… you bastards… alone... to take one zombie… by yourselves… for two… goddamn minutes…”

__________________
[/JOKE]

16,18, not much difference mentally or physically. It's a number over there. Here however it's the difference between mid life crisis with hot chicks with daddy issues and pound me in the ass prison. - Anubis

More Anubis' greatest hits:
"Families are Gods way of teaching us to get along with people we don't particularly like."

Eve arrives where Phoenix was taken from and does a complete scan of the area.

She shakes her head and Hawk asks, "What did you find?"

She replies, "Not much. Whoever is helping Phoenix they are very powerful and probably have Government Backing."

Hawk asks, "What makes you think that?"

Eve replies, "According to thermographic and spectral analysis all the vehicles in the area used the same type of fuel found in Government vehicles, shoe patterns show the exact same markings, and several large vehicles."

Hawk says, "That's circumstantial Eve. Besides I doubt the Government has those capabilities and can keep them off book. "

Eve replies, "Says the man working for a top secret organization within the Catholic Church."

Hawk chuckles and says, "Touche Eve well played. Bring it back in. We'll download your findings and go from there."

Eve says, "On my way."

She hops on The Serpent and heads back to The Church.

__________________
Know yourself & your enemy & you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles-- General Sun-Tzu

The transparent, floating screens pointed in all directions. Methodically she worked her eyes down them before she found the one she wanted.East Dock 

“Míga ríða” she chimed softly. Turning she continued to sprint through the crowd, a task made easy by her height and appearance. The crowd naturally gave way to her, she also took the opportunity to surreptitiously snatch some items from a few vendors carts as she glided by. Siv had learned long ago that not everyone noticed her ‘second’ set of arms, this had made her life a far cry easier when she’d first left her world.

Hellfire’s voice crackled over her comm. She could barely make out his yells over the background blaster fire, but she could hear the blasters from two locations. Her comm ear and also faintly to her left. Veering off the main path she followed till she reached the location. Taking cover she looked around to locate the captain. Her large violet eyes scanned the area. Large ships were docked in rows, casting long shadows from the sun above. Judging by the stacks and stacks of cargo boxes in various styles the east docks were apparently for cargo, not tourists. This would make things easier. She checked her armlet and then ducked behind some Holdorian crates. The captain was off to her right, behind a cargo box, in a firefight with two cultists. In the distance she could see Barb being dragged by others.

“I am here. Let me take them on the left flank.”

Reaching into her pockets she emptied them to see what she’d grabbed on the way over, using all her hands she sifted through it all. A lomox candle, a bottle of engine oil for a class 56 J type, and… that was enough. Lomox candles were outlawed in half the planets of this sector, because once they were robbed of their predetermined shape they became highly unstable on a molecular level. Made for some pretty but unimpressive light shows. Moving to the left of the Captain she dodged between the docked ships and flanked the cultists.
In the corner of her eye she saw other movements behind the crates and assumed they were the rest of her crew.

“Please be ready in approximately 10 seconds. I am not sure what to expect.”

Crouching behind the landing gear of a ship she opened the bottle of oil and emptied half of it on the ground before crushing the candle between all her hands, dumping the crumbles into the bottle she tossed towards the cultists and waited. In seconds it had worked. The candle crumbles sparked in the bottle, setting off the oil. The bottle exploded open and a thick green haze covered the area. A smile crept onto her face. Worked better than she’d expected. At the very least she’d figured the sound of the bottle would have alerted them to her and bought the Captain a second of reprieve to aim.

“I have this contained.”

Standing she held her arm out and aimed with her armlet at the cloud, walking towards it slowly.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheCorpulent1

twy knows in the first five minutes whether she's going to marry you, bed you, or just be friends.

Phoenix opens his eyes and finds himself in a hospital room. Laying in the bed he shakes his head a couple of times and sees a nurse taking care of his I-V.

He asks her, "Where am I? What's going on?"

She looks at him and says...nothing. The nurse turns and walks away.

Phoenix says, "Hey! I demand to know..."

He tries to raise his arms and finds he is wearing restraints. Just then a gentleman walks in wearing a black suit and glasses and carrying a folder.

The gentleman says, "Mr. Phoenix, welcome to S.T.R.I.K.E HQ. My name is Mr. Weaver. We are an organization that sees Meta-Humans as a threat that must be dealt with."

Phoenix says nothing and Weaver continues, "We are aware of your abilities, but we are also aware of your knowledge in electronics and computers and feel we might be able to enter into a mutually beneficial relationship."

Phoenix says looking at his restraints, "You've got a funny way of showing it. I'm listening."

Weaver chuckles and says, "We are great admirers of your work and feel that your technical expertise could be useful to us."

Phoenix says, "If I agree to help you what's in it for me?"

Weaver replies, "We have the technical & medical knowledge to make your treatments..."

Phoenix looks up at that and Weaver says, "We know much about you sir. Anyway your treatments become a once a day thing but you will have to rest for an hour each day and they will be much more intense. Also we can make it so that you will be a somewhat average size human being but retain your current strength, and lastly...."

Weaver smirks and says, "Revenge."

Phoenix begins to smile as Weaver hands him a file on Eve.

Weaver says, "We have our sources within their precious society, but we dare not make a move. Taking on the Roman Catholic Church could get very messy."

After skimming the file Phoenix hands it back to Weaver and says, "All-right. I'm in however Eve is all mine. I want this file destroyed I will deal with her without any aid or assistance from you all."

Weaver nods and says, "That can be arranged."

Weaver takes off the restraints and says, "We'll get you cleaned up and something to eat after your surgery."

Phoenix says, "Surgery?"

Weaver replies, "We're ready to get started on all this and also repair your knees. Are you ready?"

Phoenix says, "More than ready."

Weaver summons the nurse who has a sizable syringe and Weaver says, "It's a sedative. Once it takes affect the next time you wake up you'll be a new man."

Phoenix nods as the nurse sedates him and he begins to fall asleep dreaming of...revenge.

__________________
Know yourself & your enemy & you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles-- General Sun-Tzu

Once Lyger was clear from the back of the stairway, he instantly reached to his belt, grabbing his grappling gun and fired a grapple line to the roof of the science building, hoping to get a better look at exactly what it was he was facing. Within seconds, he was atop the roof looking out at the chaotic scene that was unfolding. What he found left him standing there in a stunned silence.

Carnival goers were scattering in all directions trying to escape the onslaught. From the sound of the chaos, he had expected to fine half a dozen or so attackers, but was relieved that he had only counted four.

Four guys did all this? He thought to himself as he surveyed the damage done to the campus, most notably the ferris wheel, which had been knocked over and had crashed into the side of one of the dorms. As he looked at the mangled amusement ride, he saw that there was very little that he could do for anyone who was on it at the time of the collapse, and all he could do was pray that there hadn't been anyone inside the dormitory when it was struck.

Then something else caught his eye, near the entrance of the Library, one of the goons had a student cornered. He recognized the terrified girl as Mandy from his anatomy class. He didn't know exactly what the goon had in mind for her, but he knew that whatever it was, it wasn't good.

Lyger backed away from the ledge of the science building, and getting a running start he dove off the roof, quickly firing his grappling gun in the direction of the downed ferris wheel, swinging toward the mangled ride, then firing another grappling line at the library, and continuing his arc toward the girl's assailant. Releasing the grapple line, he landed softly behind the thug.

"I don't think she's interested." He said from behind the startled goon. He turned to face the new arrival, but Lyger laid out the attacker with a massive roundhouse right before the goon could see who hit him.

"It's alright, now go!" Lyger said to the frightened co-ed, and without saying a word, she did as he had instructed.

As she sprinted away from the chaos, Lyger was hit by some kind of energy beam that sent him crashing into the outer brick wall of the library.

"Ouch." he groaned as he sat slumped in a heap, using the wall as support as he tried to gain his bearings. He struggled to get to his feet, and as he did so he found that he was having trouble breathing...each breath felt as if someone was jabbing him in the ribs with a red hot knife. And as he tried to clear the cobwebs from his mind, he saw the other three gang members bearing down on him.

Lyger struggles to gain his bearings as the 3 gang members come to a stop in front of him.

"You know what I hate about heroes? They always get in the way...and they never know when to stay down." Said the first, a large bear of a woman who looked as though she could be the starting nose tackle for any professional football team on the planet.

"It's alright luv, I know just how to deal with 'em." Said the meta who had struck him with an electrical blast, as he raises his hand and fires another jolt, which Lyger avoids by diving out of the way.

The electrically powered meta fires off a series of blasts, all of which Lyger avoids by diving and tumbling away from the charges. As Lyger rolls to his feet, the other gang member, a large gearhead looking meta with long greasy hair steps up to meet him. He takes a swing at Lyger, but is met with a swift kick which strikes him on the underside of the jaw, sending broken teeth and blood flying from his mouth, and sends him crashing hard to the ground where he lays motionless.

"Get 'im!" The supercharged meta cries, and as Lyger turns to face the remaining gang members, the large woman charges him. Lyger leaps into the air, avoiding her grasp, but as soon as he lands on the ground, she has already charged him again. This time, he is unable to avoid her, and she grabs him in a bear hig and drives him back first into the security rail of one of the thrill rides.

Lyger struggles to free himself, but as he does so she bears down harder and as she does so, forces the air from his lungs.

"No offense lady...but...you're...just...not...my...type." He groans as he lays back and strikes her with a roundhouse right that staggers her a bit, but does not loosen her grip enough for him to free himself. So he hits her again, and a third time with a shot that forced her to lighten her grip just enough for him to wiggle free.

As Lyger frees himself from the brute of a woman's grip, the electrically charged meta begins again firing electrical blasts at him. However, instead of striking Lyger, he hit his cohort, taking her down. His misfire doesn't phase him, as he just continues sending blast after blast at Lyger, who manages to avoid all of the electrical charges.

"Hold still, damn you." The gang member curses as he sends another series of blasts toward Lyger, who again avoids them.

Lyger charges at the meta, leaps and pounces on him.

"GAAGRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!" He cries out as he is stunned by a bone jarring jolt that leaves him on all fours, gasping for air.

"Oh yeah...about that...see, you can't touch me. Nobody can, that's my curse. 'Course, it worked out just fine for me this time..." He says as he stands over Lyger.

He takes aim, and is about to deal a leathal jolt of electricity to him, when Lyger rolls forward and takes off, jumping and rolling away from yet another series of blasts, as he moves into the rows of game stands that line part of the carnival.

The supercharged meta follows behind him, taking pot shots at Lyger as the hero moves between isles all in an attempt to keep clear of his electric blasts.

After a few minutes, the meta loses sight of Lyger.

"Come on out, you're only makin' it worse for yourself." He says after coming to a stop in front of a row of several dart games, as well as a "water gun racer" game.

"What's wrong? Scared?" The meta taunted.

"No, not scared. But for someone with your skill set, you're not very bright." Lyger said as he popped up from behind the water gun counter and sprayed the electrical meta with one of the game's water guns.

"ARRRRGGGG!!!!!!!!" The gang member cried out as the water shorted him out, causing him to collapse in a heap on the ground.

"Holy crap...it worked." Lyger said in disbelief as the sounds of police and fire sirens grew louder and louder.

With the meta gang down, he slipped away to go back to the stairwell where he could change back into his regular clothes and meet back up with Erin and the others, and just hope that she doesn't ask too many questions.

Lyger struggles to gain his bearings as the 3 gang members come to a stop in front of him.

"You know what I hate about heroes? They always get in the way...and they never know when to stay down." Said the first, a large bear of a woman who looked as though she could be the starting nose tackle for any professional football team on the planet.

"It's alright luv, I know just how to deal with 'em." Said the meta who had struck him with an electrical blast, as he raises his hand and fires another jolt, which Lyger avoids by diving out of the way.

The electrically powered meta fires off a series of blasts, all of which Lyger avoids by diving and tumbling away from the charges. As Lyger rolls to his feet, the other gang member, a large gearhead looking meta with long greasy hair steps up to meet him. He takes a swing at Lyger, but is met with a swift kick which strikes him on the underside of the jaw, sending broken teeth and blood flying from his mouth, and sends him crashing hard to the ground where he lays motionless.

"Get 'im!" The supercharged meta cries, and as Lyger turns to face the remaining gang members, the large woman charges him. Lyger leaps into the air, avoiding her grasp, but as soon as he lands on the ground, she has already charged him again. This time, he is unable to avoid her, and she grabs him in a bear hig and drives him back first into the security rail of one of the thrill rides.

Lyger struggles to free himself, but as he does so she bears down harder and as she does so, forces the air from his lungs.

"No offense lady...but...you're...just...not...my...type." He groans as he lays back and strikes her with a roundhouse right that staggers her a bit, but does not loosen her grip enough for him to free himself. So he hits her again, and a third time with a shot that forced her to lighten her grip just enough for him to wiggle free.

As Lyger frees himself from the brute of a woman's grip, the electrically charged meta begins again firing electrical blasts at him. However, instead of striking Lyger, he hit his cohort, taking her down. His misfire doesn't phase him, as he just continues sending blast after blast at Lyger, who manages to avoid all of the electrical charges.

"Hold still, damn you." The gang member curses as he sends another series of blasts toward Lyger, who again avoids them.

Lyger charges at the meta, leaps and pounces on him.

"GAAGRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!" He cries out as he is stunned by a bone jarring jolt that leaves him on all fours, gasping for air.

"Oh yeah...about that...see, you can't touch me. Nobody can, that's my curse. 'Course, it worked out just fine for me this time..." He says as he stands over Lyger.

He takes aim, and is about to deal a leathal jolt of electricity to him, when Lyger rolls forward and takes off, jumping and rolling away from yet another series of blasts, as he moves into the rows of game stands that line part of the carnival.

The supercharged meta follows behind him, taking pot shots at Lyger as the hero moves between isles all in an attempt to keep clear of his electric blasts.

After a few minutes, the meta loses sight of Lyger.

"Come on out, you're only makin' it worse for yourself." He says after coming to a stop in front of a row of several dart games, as well as a "water gun racer" game.

"What's wrong? Scared?" The meta taunted.

"No, not scared. But for someone with your skill set, you're not very bright." Lyger said as he popped up from behind the water gun counter and sprayed the electrical meta with one of the game's water guns.

"ARRRRGGGG!!!!!!!!" The gang member cried out as the water shorted him out, causing him to collapse in a heap on the ground.

"Holy crap...it worked." Lyger said in disbelief as the sounds of police and fire sirens grew louder and louder.

With the meta gang down, he slipped away to go back to the stairwell where he could change back into his regular clothes and meet back up with Erin and the others, and just hope that she doesn't ask too many questions.

On his way out to the exit to the school's carnival, Kyle noticed a young man struggling to get out to the parking area where most of the carnival goers had gathered. The young man, who Kyle recognized from some of his classes appeared to be dazed and was staggering forward, barely able to stay on his feet. Kyle jogged up to him and put the student's arm over his shoulder for support.

"Here, I've got you." He said as he helped the student out of the carnival.

Once they reached the parking lot that served as the entrance to the carnival, Kyle helped the student to a pair of medics who were standing near their ambulance assisting people with minor injuries.

He then turned to find Sam, Ronnie and Erin standing behind him, all three wore an expression of relief on their faces.

"Oh Kyle...your head..." Erin said as she pointed to a cut on his forehead just over his left eye.

"It's ok hon, it's just a scratch." He said trying to downplay his injuries.

"What were you thinking? I was so worried." She asked, in in a state between laughter and tears.

"I saw some people who needed some help, sorry babe, I didn't mean to scare you. But let's get out of here, I just want to go home."

Just as the fireball was to reach her, Haze dematerialized, allowing the burning globe to pass right through her. With a blink of the eye, she rematerialized, launching herself at her former comrade. However, he sidestepped, and hit her in the throat with a knife-edge chop, sending her crashing to the floor.

Forsaken glared down at her, preparing another fireball, but she quickly jumped up and swept his leg out from under him, putting him on his back.

Richter rushed forward, but sent staggering backward as a jolt of electricity hit him square in the chest. However, the bolt of electricity didn't stop the massive villain for long. As soon as the shock of the blast had passed, he moved toward the diminutive young blond who had struck him.

Grinning, he clapped his hands together, sending a shockwave directly at the woman. When the shockwave hit her, she was sent flying through several display cases, sending splintered glass flying in every direction, until she finally crashes hard through the wall, finally coming to a rest buried under a layer of broken glass and plaster in the adjoining exhibit hall.

As Haze and Forsaken square off in front to the display holding the Tikal Skull, the android Helos had gotten the case open and had removed the skull from its base.

"I have the skull. It is time to go." The android said in a cold, metalic voice.

Haze turned to see the android holding the skull, and felt a sick, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She bounded after Helos, only to find her self stopped in midair. For several seconds she hung in the air motionless, before being turned to once again face the man known only as The Foraken, who held her in his telekinetic grip.

"Not this time." He said as he sent her crashing hard into the wall.

***

Some time Haze was awoken by someone forcefully shaking her. She looked up and as her eyes slowly adjusted she saw 2 women standing over her. One was Synergy, who she had been working with for the last several years, and the other was Starlight, a member of the Guardians.

"You're late." She curtly said to Starlight as she picked herself up off of the ground and got to her feet.

"I got here-" She was cut off.

"I told you the situation, and all the Guardians could send was you?"

"If you haven't noticed, The Guardians aren't exactly a cohesive unit these days. Blue Blur and Kensei are MIA, Archangel hasn't exactly been himself lately, and the kid is off doing his own thing. Right now, I'm all there is."

Hearing enough, Synergy cut in.

"Look, we can get into this later, we have bigger problems right now, they took the skull."

Deep within the bowels of their mountainside hideaway, The Forsaken and the other followers of Blackwind gathered around the famous Tikal crystal skull, in the hopes that it would provide the power needed to allow their master to essentially tear a hole in the fabric of reality, and allow him to cross into our universe.

The man known as The Forsaken stood beside his comrades, and the only woman who has stood beside him since the day he was transformed into the monster that he is today, Allura. He placed the skull on an alter in the center of the room, an alter that was there more for show than necessity, and awaited for their master.

"Everything is ready?" Blackwind's voice boomed from seemingly nowhere as the dark lord slowly materialized before his followers.

"It is, Lord. We can begin." Forsaken answered.

With that, Blackwind moved like a wraith toward the alter and stood before the crystal skull. Eons of anticipation had prepared him for this moment, and after a moment's pause he reached his etheral hand out and sunk it into the crystal skull.

Suddenly, the dark chamber was bathed in a bright white light as a strong wind ripped into the room.

After several moments, the light storm died down, and once their eyes had readjusted to the dark, they found their Lord, standing in front of a the blacked skull, still a prisoner in his otherworldly prison.

Blackwind gazed down at the charred skull which sat upon the alter. As a silence fell over the darkened chamber, the formerly pristine crystal skull began to crumble, until it was nothing more than a pile of blackened ash.

"No." the dark lord said to himself as be faded from view.

***

Forsaken and Allura sat in the darkened chamber, dejected after their failure to bring Blackwind into our world, unable to understand what had gone wrong. After sitting in silence for what had seemed to be an eternity, they were almost startled by the cold, metallic voice of the android Helos chime in from across the chamber.

"Of course." The android had said.

Curious, The Forsaken made the trek across the dark chamber to where the android sat in front of a bank of computers.

"You found something?" Forsaken asked.

"Indeed. The skull should have provided enough power to allow Blackwind to cross over into our dimension. It did contain enough energy to do this successfully. However, the skull itself was unstable. When the Master added his own power to the skull's, the skull was unable to contain it, which resulted in the catastrophic failure which we witnessed."

"And that alone presents us with another problem."

"No, it does not. I have already located a suitable source of power which should be stable enough to bring the Master here...and it is close, buried within the Lost Haven city limits."

Everything goes white and behind Verona, Miranda sees what looks like the Devil, a naked man with horns, wings, and razor sharp claws. His eyes blank, evil. His expressionless face just watches, and Miranda tries to scream, but instead goes numb.

"She is crowning, the baby is coming out right now" The first doctor says.

"...And she is going into cardiac arrest. We need to deliver this baby now..."

"Cardiac arrest!??!" Verona yells, panicking as she continues to squeeze her daughters hand. And just like that Miranda sits up, clenching her chest, her eyes opening widely one last time as she watches her life flash by in a manner of seconds. She dies, falling back as the demon that only she can see disappears with her.

"NO!!!! No No NO!!!" Verona yells as the doctors struggle to get the child out, as her head and neck are now out and it's too late for an emergency C-Section. They do all they can after a few moments they pull the new born into this world, young Dinorah Redgraves cries so loudly that her screams are deafening. The glass windows SHATTER as the baby's screams seem to move with force. The violent whirlwind of projectile force stops when the baby finds her hand and sticks it in her mouth, calming down. The hospital staff in the delivery room all pick themselves up off the floor and look at eachother in shock.

Dinorah pulls her shirt off revealing her white laced bra as she climbs on top of her boyfriend Ryan. Her dorm room locked, a sock on the door, Dinorah and Ryan have a rather fun evening planned out.

"You have no idea how badly I want it, Dinorah. I can't believe we are finally doing this. I have waited for this for so long." Ryan says as he nervously undoes his belt buckle.

"Ryan. I want to share myself with you. Everyone in my life has abandoned me. But not you. I love you." She says.

"I love you too Dinorah. Just stop me if it starts to hurt, okay babe?"

"Okay"

He swiftly flips her on her back and she giggles. He leans in, kissing her neck. She runs her hands down his back and he bites her softly, causing her to dig her fingernails into his back. Suddenly, she begins to sweat become lightheaded, her eyes beginning to illuminate with a white glow.

Her nails still digging in his back, her heartbeat picks up and the room starts to spin. Suddenly, scaled purple wings rip through her back, tearing through her flesh. Razor sharp claws spring from her fingertips as her nails are still in Ryans back, causing each of her 10 claws to stab Ryan deeply, an accident, but a fatal one. The look on his face is a combination of fear and panic. Blood runs down his back staining the bedsheets and Dinorah has no idea what to do, other than cry. She pulls her three inch claws from his back and 10 little geysers of blood spring out. She stands up and looks down at her dead boyfriend. His last breath escaping his lips is a desperate cry for mercy.

"Please..." He begins to say before the eyes roll into the back of his head. He dies. Dinorah loses it and screams, a scream so loud it causes damage to her immediate environment.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" She hollers, her Siren Scream knocking down the entire wall of her top story dorm. Brick crumbles, windows shatter. Dinorah looks down at her dead love, and back up at the gaping hole in her wall overlooking Lost Haven. The tears flow heavy as she jumps out the hole and takes flight, running away from the atrocious action she has just committed.

Today. 6 years later.

"Whatever this is that I am, it's has hurt everyone I love. I have to make things right, Grandma. I have to use this power for good" Dinorah says as she walks down the stairs, her grandmother Verona Redgrave following behind her.

"You are all I have, Dinorah! PLEASE don't do this, I can't bear to lose you!!" Verona yells. Dinorah's claws come out and her wings unsheathe from her back. She turns to her grandmother, her eyes glowing white.

"It's Valkyrie, grandmother. Dinorah is the scared little girl that never stood a chance. Valkyrie is who I am now..." Dinorah says.

"So you are going to try and turn this curse into something positive? You will FAIL. Your mother didn't die so that you can...." Verona says before being interrupted.

"....My mother didn't die for NOTHING. I am going to go out there and do my mother mother proud. Her legacy will live on through me, her death will end up saving countless lives. What more do you WANT FROM ME??" She asks.

"I just... I just want you to be happy, honey" Verona says, crying.

"We all want what we can't have Grandma. Don't wait up. I have work to do."

Minutes later.

"All these poor souls wander this world in search of something they will never find..." Valkyrie thinks to herself as she soars through the night sky, the moonlight guiding her on her path through the city.

"They all have this idea of happiness, as if happiness is something even remotely obtainable. It's not. Human nature decides against it, for when one achieves what they think is happiness, they only want more. Man is never satisfied. Me? I have forsaken any idea of happiness the day I came into this world, when my mother gave her life bringing me into it. Happiness is not what I seek. What I need are ANSWERS. I need to know where these powers, this curse, where it all comes from. I need to know the truth."

She gracefully cuts through the air, her long blond hair flowing in the wind as her purple, dragon like wings proudly span.

"...but I have them, and therefore I have a responsibility I suppose."

The Valkyrie glides toward the moving car at an impeccable speed. The blue Chevy picks up the pace and Valkyrie can see the young 3 year old boy in the back seat. She needs to handle this delicately. It would be so easy to take the car out with her "Siren Scream" but that would easily endanger the child. Valkyrie instead catches up to the car and suddenly drops on the roof, causing the car to swerve. She climbs over to the side and busts in the back window, which frightens the child in the back even further.

"What in the hell ARE you!?!" the crook says as he pulls out his gun and points it at Valkyrie. She reacts as quickly as she can and covers the child's ears tightly. The crook shoots Valkyrie twice in the chest and she winces briefly, keeping her hands tightly covering the child's ears before unleashing her Siren Scream on the crook. His eyelids peel back and his nose begins to bleed as he is in direct contact with the deafening force. He passes out as his eardrums pop and blood spews from them. She grabs the young child and clutches him close to her chest. As the unmanned moving vehicle is set to go over a bridge, Valkyrie projects herself and the boy from the car merely seconds before it goes over the edge and into the water. Valkyrie glides through the air with the screaming toddler flailing his arms and legs, not fully understanding the situation.

Several days had passed since the gang of metas had attacked the school carnival. In the days that followed the attack, the campus had seen an outpouring of support from students and faculty as well as from the community at large. There had been candlelight vigils each night, and there had been an uneasy silence all around the campus as the student body reeled from the shock of the attack, and mourned those who lost their lives.

Classes had been cancelled, and were not scheduled to resume until the following Monday, leaving the thousands of resident students with little to do but reflect on what had happened.

Kyle had been sitting in the dining hall with Erin, Sam, and Ronnie having dinner in relative silence when Erin noticed a young man enter the dining hall followed by a stunning brown haired co-ed. She immediately recognized him as the guy that Kyle had dragged out of the carnival during the attack.

He was a good looking guy who kept himself in pretty good shape. His long black hair reached down past his shoulders and almost "flowed" as he walked. The girl was a natural beauty, and looked as if she belonged on a movie set or on a photo shoot instead of in a college dining room. Her shoulder length brown hair framing her perfect features.

He said something to her as he saw Kyle and his friends sitting at their corner table, and they both strode toward them.

They came to a stop at the table, the young man extending his hand.

"I never did get to thank you for helping me out the other day." He said with a barely noticeable Russian accent. "The name's Demetri, this is Hanna, my girlfriend."

Kyle accepted his outstretched hand and began introductions as Demetri and Hanna joined them for dinner.

Deep within the bowels of their mountainside hideaway, The Forsaken and the other followers of Blackwind gathered around the famous Tikal crystal skull, in the hopes that it would provide the power needed to allow their master to essentially tear a hole in the fabric of reality, and allow him to cross into our universe.

The man known as The Forsaken stood beside his comrades, and the only woman who has stood beside him since the day he was transformed into the monster that he is today, Allura. He placed the skull on an alter in the center of the room, an alter that was there more for show than necessity, and awaited for their master.

"Everything is ready?" Blackwind's voice boomed from seemingly nowhere as the dark lord slowly materialized before his followers.

"It is, Lord. We can begin." Forsaken answered.

With that, Blackwind moved like a wraith toward the alter and stood before the crystal skull. Eons of anticipation had prepared him for this moment, and after a moment's pause he reached his etheral hand out and sunk it into the crystal skull.

Suddenly, the dark chamber was bathed in a bright white light as a strong wind ripped into the room.

After several moments, the light storm died down, and once their eyes had readjusted to the dark, they found their Lord, standing in front of a the blacked skull, still a prisoner in his otherworldly prison.

Blackwind gazed down at the charred skull which sat upon the alter. As a silence fell over the darkened chamber, the formerly pristine crystal skull began to crumble, until it was nothing more than a pile of blackened ash.

"No." the dark lord said to himself as be faded from view.

***

Forsaken and Allura sat in the darkened chamber, dejected after their failure to bring Blackwind into our world, unable to understand what had gone wrong. After sitting in silence for what had seemed to be an eternity, they were almost startled by the cold, metallic voice of the android Helos chime in from across the chamber.

"Of course." The android had said.

Curious, The Forsaken made the trek across the dark chamber to where the android sat in front of a bank of computers.

"You found something?" Forsaken asked.

"Indeed. The skull should have provided enough power to allow Blackwind to cross over into our dimension. It did contain enough energy to do this successfully. However, the skull itself was unstable. When the Master added his own power to the skull's, the skull was unable to contain it, which resulted in the catastrophic failure which we witnessed."

"And that alone presents us with another problem."

"No, it does not. I have already located a suitable source of power which should be stable enough to bring the Master here...and it is close, buried within the Lost Haven city limits."

"This can't be it." The Forsaken says in bewilderment as he stands in side the tomb, looking down at the open casket that Helos was sure held the power source that would finally bring Lord Blackwind into this world.

"Rest assured Forsaken, this is it. Inside that casket lies the power source that our Master needs."

"I don't understand how that can be. He's dead." Forsaken says as he looks into the casket at its occupant. A hero who had gone above and beyond the call of duty more than once, until finally making the ultimate sacrifice to save the world from utter destruction.

"Yes, that is true. However, the body still contains a great amount of power, and his body's invulnerability should provide the stability that we need to bring our master here."

Forsaken looked again at the body of his fallen foe, still not convinced that his lifeless body is the key to their victory.

"How can you be sure, Helos?"

"I have done the calculations. If you want more proof that what I say is true, just look at his body."

"What of it?" he asks, still gazing at the corpse.

"It is in perfect condition. No trace of decay. Icon has been dead for over a half of a year. He should be an empty husk by now, yet he is perfectly preserved. The body's invulnerability protects him even in death. Trust me, this is the key."

***

Like a gust of wind, Blackwind appeared behind his followers as they stood before the open casket. A cold chill washed over the tomb announcing his presence as he stepped toward the casket.

"Is everything ready?" He asks as he looks into the casket, an evil smirk crossing his face.

"It is my lord."

"Ironic, isn't it?"

"What is that, Lord?"

"For years, he fought against me, doing everything he could to keep me confined in my prison, and now...it is because of him that I am able finally return to this world and reshape it I see fit."

With that, Blackwind reached into the casket, touching the corpse and was immediately hit with an erruption of light that emminated from inside the casket. Soon, he was engulfed in a raging torrent of wind and flame which seemed to fill the entire tomb, yet burned no one. It was a sight like none other, for even the man known as Forsaken seemed shaken by what was transpiring, and truth be told might have even felt the slightest tinge of panic had his cybernetic soul allowed it.

When the wind and flame died down, they stood before Him...their dark lord made flesh. He was hunched over slightly as his senses cleared. As he felt the cold stone beneath his feet, he stood up straight, and took his first steps on this earth in millenia.

"Finally...I am free." He said, his voice rumbling in his chest.

"I told you My Lord, we would not fail you."

"Indeed you did, and soon...you will stand at my side as we bring this pitiful world into a golden age...but first, I must rest. Escaping that infernal prison has made me weak. When I am at full strength, we shall take this planet as our own...and anyone who would dare oppose us will be ground to dust beneath or heels."

As Blackwind and his followers left Icon's tomb, they they did not notice the tiniest movement coming from within the casket, the twitch of a finger, or the subtle movement of the fallen hero's chest as air once again raced into his lungs.

The black clad hero struggled and finally swung a leg over the cliff face, before rolling onto his back on the grass. Deep breathing still coming across in a morbid pitch through the voice modulator. He lay there for a few seconds more gulping down air before finally rolling over and getting back on his feet.

“Alright, let’s get you lot out of that tree. We’ve got a boat to catch.”

Isaac made his way over to the tree and held his hand out for the small boy, only for the child to burst into tears. Moving on, he held his hand out for the young girl only to get the same response.

“Oh for crying out loud… Come on! We’ve got to get moving!”

Haliaka pleaded with the man “Just give them a few minutes! They’ve just seen everyone they know, everyone they care about pour over a cliff to the jagged rocks below!”

This was too much for the boy, “Now they’ll never get a cure!” he wailed.

“There is no cure. We don’t have time for this!” the Vigilante growled.

“What?” asked Haliaka.

“He means they were already dead. Dead has no cure.” The portly Aukai stated.

“Yes. But more than that, there is no cure. There’s no plans to ever be a cure. I’m not with disease control. This is a rescue operation. The only rescue operation.”

“They’re already dead.” Isaac confirmed, adjusting his communicator to check in “… just like everything on this island will be. I meant it when I said there’s not going to be any cure and that this is the only rescue mission. As soon as we’re out they’re going to bomb this place to dust. Scorched earth… Hello, D? Are you there? Do you read?”

Uleki spat out some phrases and words not suitable for translation at this point, before Kanani urged him to stop in front of the boy.

“About time you called in, over.” Came the reply. “The only thing holding back the bombers was a report that they’d seen candlelight.”

Isaac held a hand over the communicator “They saw the flare, they’ll coming to pick us up from the beach.”

“How many are you now?” Asked the Director, formality barely covering a seething tone.

“One, two, thr-- We’re 5. Six including myself.” he gave a quick headcount.

“A dinghy’s on its way to the coast as we speak. Get your butts over there or I’ll tell them not to bother and send the bombers early.”

“Wow. Cold.” Isaac thought. “He’s really pissed off…”

“I love you too, D. Over and out.”

Isaac killed the communicator again for some peace and quiet and turned to the other 5 survivors.

“Alright, out of the tree now. We’ve got to get hit the beach.”

**********

The five kept tight formation while they walked carefully down the hill away from the cliff face. Isaac held both berettas and looked to pick off stragglers as the others acted as spotters. He had the silencers back on the handguns now, so as to keep new attention to a minimum. The zombies that were left seemed to be a lot less mobile, with most of the more physically threatening specimens being the first ones to chase their hanging Guardian-meal over the cliff.

Survival of the fittest gone wrong, only the slowest of the mindless still survived. Give me your tired, your rotten, your ghoulish specimens whose end came because zombies tore and ate their ears off… your huddled masses yearning to eat meat…

Approaching the outskirts of the village and turning to complete their journey to the beach they began to come across more stragglers. Presumably zombies from the other side of the village who slowed their trek when the dinner’s din stopped at the top of the cliff.

FWIP! FWIP! FWIP! FWIP! Clik.

Another empty clip, Isaac discards it to the ground as he re-loads. He gives Uleki the other beretta in his stead.

Kkt. Tsh. Clik.“I’m good to go, hold fire and preserve.” He said, giving the fiery islander a spare clip.

FWIP! FWIP!

The handgun crack, the re-coil by moonlight. Taking his time to steady his hand and make sure of his shots he fells most with a single tempered blow to the head. The growing numbers of growling ghouls heighten the tension and shots start to be fired more loosely. Staggering from the village a mis-shaped form, somehow strangely familiar (but then again, he’d seen so much death tonight), lopes towards them, the black clad hero turns and fires.

“Damn, too low.” He muttered to himself, feeling his shot was off even as he fired it. The figure is struck in the torso and drops like a sack of potatoes. The hero turns to clear the rest of his immediate area and then stops.

Something’s not right.

His mind races back and he pictures the moment when he gunned down the zombie that attacked the others in the tree, he thinks back to other shots of that bloody night, he thinks back to what Gunny said.

Isaac ran back to the fallen figure, dropping to his knees as he realised how he knew her.

Patient Zero.

Tears welled up, his lower lip trembled and then he let out a bellow that echoed for over a mile around. The voice modulator crackled with static under the strain of converting the volume and weight of his voice, but it was the heart rending nature that put the others most ill at ease.

“What’s wrong?” Haliaka’s well-tempered voice echoed to deaf ears. The Vigilante wasn’t here to have heard anything. He was in a world where only saving the woman mattered. To tell himself that he really is what he always claimed to be. He entwined his fingers and putting them over her chest he began a feeble untrained attempt at CPR. Adrenaline had him so tight in its grip that the gap between thought and act had almost completely evaporated, and while he was well-trained in his own ways he’d never needed to initiate CPR. The situation had never come up. Adrenaline began to work its way out and he regained his situational awareness.

“What is it?” Haliaka repeated.

“She... was different. Not a zombie. Just sick. Alive. Still well alive. Alive enough to be killed.” Isaac was barely making sense and still frantically, obsessively trying to fix his mistake.

“She’s dead.” Said Kapali.
<“This is the Haole that you think could save us..?”> sneered Uleki with another racist jibe.

“Stop calling him that!” the boy yelled, “At least he’s trying to help! What have you done but threaten and complain?!”

Isaac kept fighting for a response that would never come. Pounding on her chest, he stuck gloved fingers into her mouth to clear the airway and jumped back in surprise when he felt the tongue move.

<“What have I done?!?”>

“She—she moved! She’s alive!”

<”What have I done?!?”>

Eyes that were admittedly listless before she was shot, flickered to a glowing vacancy that all of the survivors could instantly recognise. Isaac, who was in no position to respond, leapt back.

<”I did this!”> And with that Uleki took aim and blew whatever held onto former Patient Zero’s physical form out of three exit wounds in the back of her head.

FWIP! FWIP! FWIP!

<”F***ing Haole ***** brought this on all of us. Killed us all.”>

Isaac sat back in the mud, gazing up in stunned silence. Still severely hit from what he had just done and replaying everything that he’d seen, heard and done in these past hours one fresh thing stuck in his mind with a new clarity.

16,18, not much difference mentally or physically. It's a number over there. Here however it's the difference between mid life crisis with hot chicks with daddy issues and pound me in the ass prison. - Anubis

More Anubis' greatest hits:
"Families are Gods way of teaching us to get along with people we don't particularly like."

Eve arrives back at The Church and sees Brother Cecil going over several screens of diagnostic notes.

She says walking by, "A little light reading."

Brother Cecil looks up for a moment and says, "Hardly trying to look in on any known comm channel via your neural net while on patrol is not light reading."

Eve stops and asks, "Are you able to read my mind?"

Brother Cecil replies with a smile, "Not yet."

Eve smiles back and walks away. She enters the Command Center where Deacon Hawk is also studying a set of monitors.

She says, "I think Brother Cecil is fitting in very nicely with us."

Hawk replies without looking up, "Agreed. He has found his niche."

Eve asks, "So what did you need?"

Hawk asks, "Familiar with S-T-R-I-K-E?"

Eve replies, "To a point why?"

Hawk says, "Monitoring the communications on your Neural Net and some digging on my own. There's no doubt Phoenix was taken by them and they have formed a partnership."

Eve says, "Then it's time to go get him."

Hawk replies, "Slow down there. This organization is Government based in a lot of ways and we don't have any hard proof. Only a theory which some of our facts seem to favor. Besides you against them alone not gonna be pretty."

Eve asks, "So what's the next step?"

Hawk replies, "Time to for you to form some alliances within the Meta-Human community. That's the only way it'll work."

Eve nods and says, "Agreed."

Hawk says, "Be mindful of the following though. No one is to know you're a cyborg and no one is to know about The Society. Any of these rules get broken and you will be subject to being taken off line."

Eve nods and says, "Understood."

Hawk says, "All-right take your diagnostic time and then get back out on the streets and hope you meet up with others at some point."

Eve nods and after an hour is back out on the streets.

__________________
Know yourself & your enemy & you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles-- General Sun-Tzu

"Everynight the dream is the same. I transform into The Valkyrie, the wings protruding from my back, ripping through my flesh, claws ripping through my fingertips. I open my eyes and I am in hell. It's smoldering, and on both sides of the narrow path are large lakes of magma. Down the path I walk alone, until I reach the end, where I am greeted by a well dressed man with a blank smile. Through the shadow cast on his face I can not see anything other than that smile. This is the closet thing I have to a relationship with my father"

Dinorah Redgrave stands in the shower, her eyes closed as the water pours down her face in a refreshing wave after a long night of fighting crime.

"Keep it up Dinorah. You are doing great. You are a beacon of hope in a hopeless world" she thinks to herself as she runs a bar of soap down from her shoulder across her chest.

"Dinorah! Come down for dinner!" Her grandmother Verona yells from downstairs. Dinorah turns off the water and exits the shower. She looks in the mirror and sees a man standing behind her in the mirror. A shadowy figure with long hair and glowing eyes.

"Sweet Dinorah, sweet Valkyrie...you think you are a hero? You think that your mother died so that you would go on to save countless lives? My dear sweet girl, your mother gave birth to the Antichrist. You're no hero...you are pure evil, you just don't know it yet." He says.
Dinorah turns around and he vanishes into thin air.

"What the hell was that?" Dinorah says, her senses flaring as her eyes glow
ELSEWHERE

Jack Barret stands in his office atop the BarretTech building in down town Legacy City. He is looking out his window overlooking all of Lost Haven. The rain pouring down on the busy city as the citizens below buzz to and from underneath their umbrellas trying to keep dry.

He takes a sip of his Gin and Tonic as he observes the scenery. Grey clouds cover the sky and drown out the sun. A crack of thunder is heard and rain begins to fall from the sky.

Jack lights a cigar and exhales the smoke from his nose, lost in thought. He sees his reflection in the glass window. He studies his face for a bit, almost as if he is trying to see through himself. Then, a shadowy figure appears behind him. His hair is long and black, his skin is cocaine white.

"And people think I am a monster. For shame, Jack. For Shame." The shadowy figure says.

Jack turns around quickly but there is no one behind him. Perhaps it was a figment of his imagination, maybe it was the alcohol. Jack takes a moment to collect himself before heading to his desk where he takes a seat and props his feet off. His secretary, Mercedes, enters the room.

"Must be for him to be here this late. Send him in, Mercedes" Jack says, exhaling smoke from his nose.

Trent Howard, head of the Distribution department, comes in with a stern look on his face.

"I have to say, Barret, I still don't understand why you decided to move our headquarters from New York to Lost Haven but all I know is that it rains too damn much here, old friend.." Trent says, nodding with a smile as he takes a seat.
"I grew up here, Trent. In a post-Invasion Lost Haven this is the perfect place to start over. I've always loved this place and the economy is booming around here now with the rebuilding." Jack says

"Sentimental AND practical. Glad to see things never change, heh. Ugh...look Jack. There is something going on, and I'm not sure what to make of it. There was about $750,000 worth of BarretTech inventory that went missing during a shipment to the Army. The stuff that went missing was all highly advanced weapons and tech. All of it, just gone. We have no idea how this could have happened. We did a full audit of everything going out, had no reported problems on the delivery and came up several items short on the return" Trent says.

"This is unfortunate, Trent. Very unfortunate. You understand that if this gets out to the press, then you have completely screwed the pooch here. Jobs might be lost" Jacks says before sighing

Jack shakes his head as he exhales his cigar smoke before pouring himself another drink, this time a bit of brandy, before sharing an awkward bit of silence with Trent.

"I'll see to it that it doesn't come to that, Jack. What do we do now?" Trent asks

"All we can do is watch and see how this plays out. Should get pretty interesting when we find out where that Tech lands" Jack says

-

Later on that night, Rain continues to fall relentlessly down upon the moonlit streets of Lost Haven. Smoke billows from the sewers as steam rises from streets. It's a cold wet night and the mood is just as dark as the sky above.

The White Knight stands on top of The BarretTech building overlooking the entire city, lost in thought.

"It's not stealing if the property belongs to me in the first place" The White Knight thinks to himself before accelerating into the air and taking slight across the night sky. His glowing yellow eyes look like shooting stars across the clouds.

Tonight, Jack Barret watches over Lost Haven, protecting those who need it, for he is a silent guardian. A White Knight.

The sun began to set an yet another day, splashing the sky with glorious purple and red hues. Scott Morse leans back against a tree which sits on the edge of a vast field which overlooks a large mountain range which seemingly goes on forever.

He is amazed by the breathtaking view, and greatful to be sharing it with his kid sister Jenny, and the love of his life, Lisa...both of whom were once thought lost to him forever. Lisa, having died during the alien invasion, and Jenny, at the hands of one of Scott's most hated enemies.

But death had claimed Scott Morse, known to the world as the superhero Icon as well...reuniting him with two of the most important women in his life. And for the first time in years, surrounded by loved ones who had passed on before him...Scott was happy.

Although his work was not finished on Earth, he knew that there were other heroes there that could carry on his work in his place.

He took his eyes from the sunset to look over to his sister and Lisa, who's light brown hair flowed slightly from the light breeze that swept the field, and couldn't believe how lucky he was.

He was about to say something, when Jenny cut him off.

"Scotty, they're calling you."

"Huh?" He said, not understanding.

"You can't stay Scott. They're calling you back."

He attempts to question them further, however, the ground seemed to give way under his feet, and he suddenly felt the sensation of freefall. As he fell, the world around him seemed to melt away, twisting and turning in a multicolored spiral, churning all around him. The gentle breeze that he felt before was gone, replaced by a whipping torrent of powerful wind that stung his face.

Soon, the wind died down, all that remained was darkness...and the sudden feeling that he was alone.

***

Like a gust of wind, Blackwind appeared behind his followers as they stood before the open casket. A cold chill washed over the tomb announcing his presence as he stepped toward the casket.

"Is everything ready?" He asks as he looks into the casket, an evil smirk crossing his face.

"It is my lord."

"Ironic, isn't it?"

"What is that, Lord?"

"For years, he fought against me, doing everything he could to keep me confined in my prison, and now...it is because of him that I am able finally return to this world and reshape it I see fit."

With that, Blackwind reached into the casket, touching the corpse and was immediately hit with an erruption of light that emminated from inside the casket. Soon, he was engulfed in a raging torrent of wind and flame which seemed to fill the entire tomb, yet burned no one. It was a sight like none other, for even the man known as Forsaken seemed shaken by what was transpiring, and truth be told might have even felt the slightest tinge of panic had his cybernetic soul allowed it.

When the wind and flame died down, they stood before Him...their dark lord made flesh. He was hunched over slightly as his senses cleared. As he felt the cold stone beneath his feet, he stood up straight, and took his first steps on this earth in millenia.

"Finally...I am free." He said, his voice rumbling in his chest.

"I told you My Lord, we would not fail you."

"Indeed you did, and soon...you will stand at my side as we bring this pitiful world into a golden age...but first, I must rest. Escaping that infernal prison has made me weak. When I am at full strength, we shall take this planet as our own...and anyone who would dare oppose us will be ground to dust beneath or heels."

As Blackwind and his followers left Icon's tomb, they they did not notice the tiniest movement coming from within the casket, the twitch of a finger, or the subtle movement of the fallen hero's chest as air once again raced into his lungs.

***

Icon felt the sting in his lungs as dank air from inside his tomb filled his lungs. He opened his eyes and lay in place for a moment, not recognizing his surroundings. He pulled himself up, and found himself in a living nightmare, sitting in an open casket inside of a tomb.

He pulled himself from the casket and stumbled, finding that he was not steady on his feet. He took a moment to try to gather himself before he took another step. He knew that he needed to get out of there, but decided that he wasn't steady enough to fly. So after locating the entrance to the tomb, be removed his cape and mask, and exited the tomb.

The sun began to set an yet another day, splashing the sky with glorious purple and red hues. Scott Morse leans back against a tree which sits on the edge of a vast field which overlooks a large mountain range which seemingly goes on forever.

He is amazed by the breathtaking view, and greatful to be sharing it with his kid sister Jenny, and the love of his life, Lisa...both of whom were once thought lost to him forever. Lisa, having died during the alien invasion, and Jenny, at the hands of one of Scott's most hated enemies.

But death had claimed Scott Morse, known to the world as the superhero Icon as well...reuniting him with two of the most important women in his life. And for the first time in years, surrounded by loved ones who had passed on before him...Scott was happy.

Although his work was not finished on Earth, he knew that there were other heroes there that could carry on his work in his place.

He took his eyes from the sunset to look over to his sister and Lisa, who's light brown hair flowed slightly from the light breeze that swept the field, and couldn't believe how lucky he was.

He was about to say something, when Jenny cut him off.

"Scotty, they're calling you."

"Huh?" He said, not understanding.

"You can't stay Scott. They're calling you back."

He attempts to question them further, however, the ground seemed to give way under his feet, and he suddenly felt the sensation of freefall. As he fell, the world around him seemed to melt away, twisting and turning in a multicolored spiral, churning all around him. The gentle breeze that he felt before was gone, replaced by a whipping torrent of powerful wind that stung his face.

Soon, the wind died down, all that remained was darkness...and the sudden feeling that he was alone.

***

Like a gust of wind, Blackwind appeared behind his followers as they stood before the open casket. A cold chill washed over the tomb announcing his presence as he stepped toward the casket.

"Is everything ready?" He asks as he looks into the casket, an evil smirk crossing his face.

"It is my lord."

"Ironic, isn't it?"

"What is that, Lord?"

"For years, he fought against me, doing everything he could to keep me confined in my prison, and now...it is because of him that I am able finally return to this world and reshape it I see fit."

With that, Blackwind reached into the casket, touching the corpse and was immediately hit with an erruption of light that emminated from inside the casket. Soon, he was engulfed in a raging torrent of wind and flame which seemed to fill the entire tomb, yet burned no one. It was a sight like none other, for even the man known as Forsaken seemed shaken by what was transpiring, and truth be told might have even felt the slightest tinge of panic had his cybernetic soul allowed it.

When the wind and flame died down, they stood before Him...their dark lord made flesh. He was hunched over slightly as his senses cleared. As he felt the cold stone beneath his feet, he stood up straight, and took his first steps on this earth in millenia.

"Finally...I am free." He said, his voice rumbling in his chest.

"I told you My Lord, we would not fail you."

"Indeed you did, and soon...you will stand at my side as we bring this pitiful world into a golden age...but first, I must rest. Escaping that infernal prison has made me weak. When I am at full strength, we shall take this planet as our own...and anyone who would dare oppose us will be ground to dust beneath or heels."

As Blackwind and his followers left Icon's tomb, they they did not notice the tiniest movement coming from within the casket, the twitch of a finger, or the subtle movement of the fallen hero's chest as air once again raced into his lungs.

***

Icon felt the sting in his lungs as dank air from inside his tomb filled his lungs. He opened his eyes and lay in place for a moment, not recognizing his surroundings. He pulled himself up, and found himself in a living nightmare, sitting in an open casket inside of a tomb.

He pulled himself from the casket and stumbled, finding that he was not steady on his feet. He took a moment to try to gather himself before he took another step. He knew that he needed to get out of there, but decided that he wasn't steady enough to fly. So after locating the entrance to the tomb, be removed his cape and mask, and exited the tomb.

Icon took his first unsteady steps outside of the monument which had housed his tomb, and immediately found his senses assaulted. His super-human hearing picking up the most diminutive of sounds playing like jackhammers in his head. It took him several moments, but he was able to bring it to a somewhat manageable level.

As he stumbled away from his tomb, he noticed several homeless people sleeping in the park not all that far from his monument. Knowing that he needed to find something to help him look alittle less conspicuous, he made his way toward one of the sleeping men. The man was sleeping on a bench, using his dirty old trenchcoat, which at one point looked to have been tan, but was now brown with age and neglect.

Icon discretely took the coat off of the sleeping man, and put it on. Then, he made his way to the entrance of Mt Olympus Memorial Park, and began his trek home.

Icon took his first unsteady steps outside of the monument which had housed his tomb, and immediately found his senses assaulted. His super-human hearing picking up the most diminutive of sounds playing like jackhammers in his head. It took him several moments, but he was able to bring it to a somewhat manageable level.

As he stumbled away from his tomb, he noticed several homeless people sleeping in the park not all that far from his monument. Knowing that he needed to find something to help him look alittle less conspicuous, he made his way toward one of the sleeping men. The man was sleeping on a bench, using his dirty old trenchcoat, which at one point looked to have been tan, but was now brown with age and neglect.

Icon discretely took the coat off of the sleeping man, and put it on. Then, he made his way to the entrance of Mt Olympus Memorial Park, and began his trek home.

Draped in the tattered and dirty overcoat, Icon made his way down the street toward his apartment. With the wind whipping, he might look to any onlooker as just another of Lost Haven's many homeless looking for a shelter from the cold night air.

He walked along in a slightly dazed state, disorientated and confused as he moved closer to his home. He noticed that things seemed somewhat different around him. The store fronts around him seemed new. With very few exceptions, there was very little evidence of the destruction that he remembered from the STRIKE siege and his ensuing battle with Endgame.

What's going on? This has to be one of Anderson's tricks." He thought to himself as he stumbled forward, taking a moment to rest against the side of a building.

Several steps later, a gust of wind, and that day's addition of the Lost Haven Times put that theory to rest. The first page of that day's paper blew into the side of his foot. He slowly reached down and picked it up, and he couldn't believe what he saw when he looked at the date on the top of the page.

"Six months...?" He quietly said to himself in disbelief. "I've been gone for six months?". He said, not believing the words he was hearing leave his lips.

With more questions than answers, he pushed on toward his apartment.

***

Scott fumbled with the doorknob to his apartment in the dark, finding that it was locked. Using little effort, he broke the lock...making note that he would have to replace it in the morning...as soon as he's figured out exactly what was going on.

As he stepped into the apartment and turned on the light, he found that it was not in the same condition as the last time he had seen it. There were empty coffee cups scattered around the apartment mixed with dirty laundry and empty take out containers.

"Keira?" He says quietly as he pushes a black bra with his foot.

He heard the sound of someone walking down the hall near Jenny's old room. He didn't know who could be in his apartment, but was surprised when the intruder made her way into the living room, coming face to face with Kayla.

Draped in the tattered and dirty overcoat, Icon made his way down the street toward his apartment. With the wind whipping, he might look to any onlooker as just another of Lost Haven's many homeless looking for a shelter from the cold night air.

He walked along in a slightly dazed state, disorientated and confused as he moved closer to his home. He noticed that things seemed somewhat different around him. The store fronts around him seemed new. With very few exceptions, there was very little evidence of the destruction that he remembered from the STRIKE siege and his ensuing battle with Endgame.

What's going on? This has to be one of Anderson's tricks." He thought to himself as he stumbled forward, taking a moment to rest against the side of a building.

Several steps later, a gust of wind, and that day's addition of the Lost Haven Times put that theory to rest. The first page of that day's paper blew into the side of his foot. He slowly reached down and picked it up, and he couldn't believe what he saw when he looked at the date on the top of the page.

"Six months...?" He quietly said to himself in disbelief. "I've been gone for six months?". He said, not believing the words he was hearing leave his lips.

With more questions than answers, he pushed on toward his apartment.

***

Scott fumbled with the doorknob to his apartment in the dark, finding that it was locked. Using little effort, he broke the lock...making note that he would have to replace it in the morning...as soon as he's figured out exactly what was going on.

As he stepped into the apartment and turned on the light, he found that it was not in the same condition as the last time he had seen it. There were empty coffee cups scattered around the apartment mixed with dirty laundry and empty take out containers.

"Keira?" He says quietly as he pushes a black bra with his foot.

He heard the sound of someone walking down the hall near Jenny's old room. He didn't know who could be in his apartment, but was surprised when the intruder made her way into the living room, coming face to face with Kayla.

"Oh my god...Scott?"

Scott sat quietly on his couch waiting as Kayla prepared him a hot cup of tea. After several minutes, she came back into the living room, carefully handed him the steaming cup and gently sat down next to him.

There had been an uncomfortable silence since he came to the apartment, he had questions, and she had no answers. It was just six months before that she had held him in her arms as he succumbed to the injuries he had suffered in his battle with the beast Endgame. Yet here he was, sitting in the living room of the apartment that she had taken over after his passing.

She gently placed her hand on his forearm and turned to him.

"Do you remember...anything?" She asked, finally breaking the silence.

"The last thing I remember is flying toward Endgame and knocking him into that portal. Then falling. After that, it's just flashes. I remember you and Michael and some of the others standing around me...then there's nothing. It's like I ..."

"You died Scott. You died in my arms. We buried you." She said in disbelief, still trying to let this all sink in.

"I...I died." He said evenly, trying to come to grips with the new information.

"But how is that possible...? I mean, people don't just come back from the dead..." He said, his voice trailing off.

"I know...there must be some explanation, and we'll find it."

"Kiera..."

"What?"

"She thinks I'm dead. I have to go to her, she has to know I'm..."

"We'll worry about that tomorrow. Right now, you need to get your strength up."

Lyger stood on the rooftop of a building across the street from his dorm after completing his final sweep of the neighborhood. It had been a long and uneventful day, followed by a long and uneventful night, a night in which he didn't even come across a purse snatcher. And though he was somewhat disappointed, as he found that there was nothing more exhilarating than catching a criminal in the act; he was also grateful because he was dead tired.

Since the gang of metas attacked the school carnival he had been having trouble sleeping. He felt guilty that he hadn't been able to stop them from hurting everyone, and even though he knew that he had done everything he could, he found himself placing an large amount of blame on himself for the lives that were lost.

Not to mention that the attack had left Erin shaken to the core. She had been spending the night in his dorm most every night since the attack, not that he minded at all, but it did make it more difficult to take off and get into costume. He had been thinking that maybe he should just tell her the truth, he had even talked to Ronnie about it, and he had decided that it was best not to tell her, or Sam for that matter...at least not yet.

Just as he was about to climb down from the roof and change back into his regular clothes, his phone rang. He hated bringing it with him on patrol, but Erin had been so shaken by the attack that he found it was the only way he could get away long enough to patrol. However, he was surprised when he looked at the phone and saw that it wasn't Erin.

"Hey Hannah, what's up?" He said trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Hey Kyle, have you heard from Demetri? He hasn't gotten back from work yet, and he was supposed to get off over an hour ago." She said, her voice a mixture of worry and frustration.

"I haven't, but if I see him I'll let him know you're looking for him." He told her.

"Okay...thanks. I'll talk to you later."

He said goodbye and decided that maybe he should take one more sweep around the area...just in case.

Isaac snapped back into reality, although wide-eyed and stunned by recent events.

“Come on! You have to get us out of here!”

His eyes steeled once again, focused on the task at hand.

<”He’s done. His brains cooked when he shot that girl.”> Uleki spat.

He gathered his bearings in the dark and scoured the area for any more rotting ramblers. He brushed aside the seething Hawaiian. “The boat” he spoke, “won’t wait for us forever. Let’s go.” He picked his gun up out of the dirt and looked at it for a second, sighing before loading a fresh clip.

Distasteful as it may be, it was still a tool that had to be used. At least until he could find a way off this rock...

* * * * *

Three full clips remained by the time the small group hit the beachhead. With dawn still yet to come, pushed a full clip into Uleki’s chest as it was too dark to risk throwing it.

“Tell him to make it last,” he told Haliaka, “these last two are mine.” As if to illustrate a point he put a bullet in two zombies. “Five, four.” He thought, keeping count of the remaining rounds in his clip.

“Where is it?” Kapali cried, looking out at the moonlit black mat for the boat. Uleki and Isaac swept the beach clean while the unarmed four searched.

“There!” It was Aukai who first saw it, bobbing about 150 yards out.

“How the hell did he see that?” Isaac thought to himself.

“Into the water!” the six ran through the fine Hawaiian sand, Uleki and Isaac laying down covering fire for the other four.

Isaac ran past the waddling Aukai to create a clearer path as they approached the water. “You’d better be able to swim, tubbsy, because I don’t think my heart can take dragging you that far.”

Aukai’s only response was a knowing grin, which ironically came across as a rather dopey one.

Isaac ran down to the waterline and turned, picking off any who approached the other four. They chopped up the water like galloping horses, granted Aukai waded into the chop like a Clydesdale, but a horse nonetheless. The Vigilante turned his sights on the water, covering them from the wading dead until the path was clear before striding through the sea himself. He got to hip deep and rising before he was forced to holster the Beretta and dive into the wash himself.

The six swam for the boat and for the second time that night the vigilante found himself terrified of the thought of a hand reaching up to snatch him from the murky depths below.

“There! Five of them, swimming this way! No! Six!” Isaac heard called from the boat up ahead. The weight of his gear started to take toll, but he continued on. Rolling one arm after the other, following the other five. Aukai reached the boat first, several metres in front of the others. It was a good thing too, it took a few strong men several seconds to haul him into the boat. Isaac swam past the young boy Kapali and urged him onwards.

“Not much further. You’re nearly there.”

Uleki had caught up to and was swimming with Kanani. Haliaka reached the boat next and was quickly lifted into the boat. The Vigilante reached the boat next, he imagined there would be a de-briefing report of sorts but had no intentions of wasting time with that until all present were safely on board. He turned to cover the other three, pulling the M1A1 back out for the last time.

Uleki and Kanani reached the back of the boat and were getting assisted by others. The black-clad Guardian kept his eyes glued on the small boy. He was struggling, he’d been alright before when Isaac passed him but was now thrashing at the water far more than maintaining a regular stroke. “Is he just tired or is it something else?” Isaac thought to himself. “Should I...” but he didn’t have time to finish his thought. Aukai had already thrown himself off the boat and was swimming strongly to the small boy’s aid.

“Keep him covered!” Isaac called. “Can we get some lights over here!?”

“Aaaaah!” Kapali wailed. “Something touched me!”

Aukai’s stroke seemed to double in power at the sound of the boy’s cries. He reached Kapali and started dragging him through the water back towards the boat. Isaac’s eyes remained fixed on the pair, cutting through the darkness with the focus of a laser beam. Whether it was an adrenaline surge or a second wind, the boy found it within himself to power through a few more strokes.

Then nightmares broke through reality.

Somewhere beneath the water a rotten hand had grabbed a plump ankle. Aukai didn’t scream at first. There was no time. He fought it off, one kick of powerful swimmer’s legs was enough to thwart off the first attack. But that’s what it was. The first attack. Like a fish taking a first nibble at bait before going the hard bite. Aukai took a half gulp of sea water on that first attack, enough to panic him. Isaac’s focus shifted from covering the boy to the larger man. A decayed limb swung through the pre-dawn air over Aukai’s back as the hand gripped his shoulder, nails or bones dug in hard.

“Noooo!” Aukai howled.

The boy shrieked.

Isaac took aim. He steadied and weighted himself. He took every split second he had, not wanting to miss and shoot the much larger man who was in front of the zombie.

BANG!

Time froze for seemingly a second, then a small hole opened up as if some kind of cosmic force had just pushed a drawing pin through Aukai’s skull. Blood trickled out and both he and the ghoul sank to the bottom of the ocean.

“No! No-oo! I didn’t...” then Isaac looked over his left shoulder, where steam rose out of a hot barrel.

“What did you do?!?” he yelled, grabbing the man by his lapels. The others helped the small boy into the boat.

“Following orders. You’re to be quarantined. No one infected on board.”

Uleki put the gun against the temple of the man.

“No. Not that way! Put it down. Tell him to put it down!” Uleki understood perfectly, but kept the man at gunpoint.

<”Uleki, no! Put it down!”> Haliaka and Kanani chimed.

<”F***ing haole’s coming here and destroying our lives. Our world. And you don’t even acknowledge that you do it!.”> Uleki growled out ebetween gritted teeth, before finally crossing the language barrier.

“That man never hurt anyone.” Uleki seethed with as much venom as he could muster.

The gun wasn’t lowered. Two more were raised, trained on the angry native young man.

Uleki slowly put the gun down, before turning and punching the man right on the corner of the jaw. He turned and gave the gun back to the Vigilante.

“He-- He hit me.”

“He did. You’re very astute. And lucky...” The Vigilante grumbled.

“...I’d have knocked your nose off of your face.”

__________________
[/JOKE]

16,18, not much difference mentally or physically. It's a number over there. Here however it's the difference between mid life crisis with hot chicks with daddy issues and pound me in the ass prison. - Anubis

More Anubis' greatest hits:
"Families are Gods way of teaching us to get along with people we don't particularly like."

The Vigilante storms the halls of The Agency, a grim expression on his face which someone else would have to pay for. A blue feminine form chases him from behind.

“I need to speak to you.” Flux said.

“Not now.” He growled, his temperament even darker than usual.

She felt the anger searing through him empathically, burning for release and decided to let him go for now. He was stubborn at the best of times and in his present mood civil conversation would be impossible. She watched him as he left.

“You! A**hole!” He shouted, bursting through the Director’s door.

“What?” The stout man enquired calmly, addressing the rude intrusion.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about...” The Vigilante seethed.

“I think I might know what this is about. But I’m not taking part in this discussion until you shut the door, and I think given what it involves it would suit you to close it as well.” His voice so cool, calm and collected it practically had icicles surrounding each word.

Isaac closed the door and glared back across the room.

“We had a deal.” The Vigilante hissed.

“We did. And for some reason, you seem to feel as if YOU’RE the one who’s been slighted.” Still calm, but clearly irritated.

“YOU said if I did your damned zombie mission I could spend a month on leave to go... you know... where I want to go.” Isaac accused.

“Less 48 hours for quarantine. I know exactly what was said.” D said. “But you had only one order and you broke it.”

“What are you talking about? I went in there, I found survivors, I got us to the extraction point. Mission complete. How’d I break orders?”

“There was no order that you had to find survivors and get out. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if there would be survivors. You had one order...”

“What, dammit? What the hell did I do?!?”

“’We 4, no more.’” D quoted.

“THAT?!? That was an order? I thought orders would have some kind of weight to them, that was the last thing you said to me.”

“All the more reason it should have stuck in your head.”

“Who’d I tell?” Isaac muttered to himself, coming through his voice modulator clearer than he’d like.

The Director moved a mouse on his desk and the smart board sprang into life. Isaac was beginning to hate that thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sound file

“...just like everything on this island will be. I meant it when I said there’s not going to be any cure and that this is the only rescue mission. As soon as we’re out they’re going to bomb this place to dust. Scorched earth... Hello D? Are you there? Do you read?”

“Huh... So you heard all that?”

“Yeah. We heard all that.”

“Well, in my own defence, they’d just seen pretty much everyone they knew or cared about die right in front of them. We were running late for pick-up. I had to get them to move. What was I supposed to tell them?”

“What were you supposed to tell them? How about ‘ANYTHING BUT THE TRUTH’?” D barked, finally showing cracks in his cool. “You lie. Hell, if you’ve been holding onto a secret identity for all this time I assume it’s not a foreign concept to you.”

“Anything?”

“Anything. Hell, you can even tell them something worse than the truth if you want. When they come back and start pointing fingers at their government, then none of their accusations will have any base in reality and they’ll be dismissed. But you don’t tell them the damned truth. It costs too much money, money we don’t have, to clean up that kind of mess.”

“They-- They are still alive, right?”

D looked at him with a semi-disgusted expression on his face.

“Of course they’re still alive. We’re not monsters.”

Silence abounds between them.

“You know I can’t stay here, right? Maybe I don’t need a whole month, but I do need to get back. This whole ‘draft’ thing got dropped right in my lap and I had nothing prepared for a lengthy stay here.”

The Director held his head in his hand. Discipline was required, but it still needed a deft touch. The order hadn’t been given with a great deal of weight and he had been given precious little time, none really, to deal with the changes that would come from The Agency.

“One week. You get one week. If you’re not back in one week you don’t have a secret identity anymore.”

Sensing that this was as good as it was going to get, Isaac left with what he could get. One week’s leave, at least that would be enough time to make his presence felt and make arrangements for the coming months.

“We need to talk.” Flux said, just as he was closing the door to the Director’s office behind him.

“Gah! Were—were you waiting for me? How much of that did you hear?”

“Nothing. It’s a very solid door. We need to talk.”

“So you keep saying. Alright, where’s your room, let’s get it over with.”

They went off to the privacy of Flux’s private room in the compound, where she shut the door behind them.

Isaac sat down on the bed and then sighed, before beginning a cold mechanical speech which sounded either rehearsed or like he’d had to say it too many times in the past, particularly when coming through his voice modulator.

“I apologise for any offence I may have caused when speaking to your boyfriend the other day. What I said was for him to hear alone and my comments were said in the heat of having just heard what--…”

“No.” Flux said softly. “That’s not why I wanted to speak to you. Well, not directly.”

“Well, what then? Oh. Ohhhhhhhh.”

“What? Oh, no. No. Eww. No.”

“Eww?” He said, somewhat indignant.

“I meant ‘No’.”

“Well, I didn’t think so. I mean you’ve made it abundantly clear very early on that you didn’t like me in any capacity, let alone that way. It did seem odd that I’ve noticed you staring at me.”

“You noticed?”

“How could I not? Remember why I’m here.” He said, tapping his temple with his index finger. “I can’t carry a bus, fly or punch a hole in a solid steel wall…”

He stopped his sentence short, but decided he couldn’t leave it there. Something in his gut growled, churned and demanded he vent once more.

“We had someone for that, but as you know he’s gone now.” He spat darkly.

“That’s what this is about.” Flux started, she pointed at him but somehow it didn’t seem accusatory. “You’re right, since you joined the Guardians I had been avoiding you. Do you know why?”

“Fear? Deep-seeded loathing? Because I don’t view the world as being as fluffy as you’d like?” He thought to himself.

“Because there was something in you that I didn’t like. Something base and dark and negative. Something I see in the people who we try and stop. It scared me…”

The Vigilante smirked, hearing his first thought of fear confirmed.

“…No.” The blue Guardian continued. “Not made me afraid of what you’re capable of. Afraid of what being constantly exposed to what’s in you coming out in me. When they first found me, they called me an ‘empath’, what that is supposed to mean is that I absorb surrounding emotion and take on various traits. I was scared of what being around the people we try to stop out there, and then come back to Headquarters and being around the same thing in there. What that might do to me.”

Isaac rubbed his cheek and pulled his balakava slightly away from it, where hair was starting to cling to it.

“I trusted you, because others vouched for you. So I wasn’t overly scared of what you had inside you… at first. But when you’re around it every day, you begin to get a greater idea of the entire tapestry of what those dark emotions are comprised of. Everything that we see when we fight those people. Fear, anger, deep vengeful moods, even envy at times in traces.”

“And when I yelled at Mikey, it all burst forth and you realised that if I continued to be this way you couldn’t keep yourself from absorbing this negativity any further. You came to the conclusion my emotions could potentially turn you into a threat.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. It was the first time that I picked up on something that very rarely appears in the people we fight. The first time you’d let any of it out, and it was so bright it was like a flash overwhelming me. I was shocked, because I’d never really picked up on a trace of it before. But it all started to make sense.”

“When I yelled at Mikey? I’d never blown out and shown total wrath before?”

“It wasn’t wrath. It was guilt.”

Isaac remained uncharacteristically silent, but his face began to bloom red under his dark mask at what he was hearing. He remained silent, trying to keep everything bottled, but struggled.

“You were frustrated with Michael not saving him… because you blamed yourself for him being in that situation in the first place.”

His cheeks glowed a hot crimson beneath the black balaklava.

“I can only imagine that you blame yourself for not being there to help when he was fighting the big monster Endgame…”

“Or for manipulating him into re-joining the Guardians when he’d gotten out, when he’d started a new life.” He thought to himself, not willing to reveal anything he kept it to himself. But Flux had done something, she’d gotten to him enough to actually drag this thought into his consciousness and he contemplated it with his head down.

“It wasn’t your fault. There were a lot of us there and he wouldn’t let us help either. It wasn’t your fault.” She put her hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

He sat in uncomfortable silence for a few more seconds until Flux felt she had to repeat herself.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

He raised his head and looked at her. She smiled warmly. He got to his feet.

“I liked you better when you were afraid of me...”

He left the room without another word.

__________________
[/JOKE]

16,18, not much difference mentally or physically. It's a number over there. Here however it's the difference between mid life crisis with hot chicks with daddy issues and pound me in the ass prison. - Anubis

More Anubis' greatest hits:
"Families are Gods way of teaching us to get along with people we don't particularly like."

Isaac left Flux’s quarters and walked down a hall way towards his own private room. He strove to put her drive her words from his mind with every stride. He needed a distraction. Someone to hit, a problem to solve, something to do. Anything.

Or failing that, solitude.

Entering his room and closing the door behind him, he felt it all wash away with a soothing tic-tic-tic sound which had been growing ever more on him. A warm smile crossed his face, a rarity of its kind, as he let his defences drop as much as he could allow in this building. They were raised again when his hand brushed against a foreign object resting on his bed as he sat down.

It looked like a toy gun of sorts. Made of clunky ostentatious yellow plastic, written on the gun in light purple writing when he held it up to the light to show it in better relief it said:

From Megan –
Do not tamper with inner-workings.
Keep in this world.
Hope you enjoy.

Examining it closer he saw that it wasn’t a decal, it was comprised of yellow plastic and light purple plastic, never separated and not painted. Those were its colours. With no visible join.

“She had to have made it.” He muttered to himself. He didn’t have a microscope handy but he was willing to bet it was indeed constructed down to a molecular level. He rubbed his jaw in contemplation. “Keep in this world”. Sounds both foreboding and intriguing. What could she have meant by that?

One thing’s for certain he didn’t intend to tinker with it. When a god-like entity, even in the form of a little girl, gives an instruction like “Oh, and don’t eat that fruit” or “Mind you don’t open that box, Pandora” it’s generally a good idea to leave well enough alone and play by those rules. Besides, he probably wouldn’t know how it works even if he did crack it open and something about the “Keep in this world” suggested to him that it was one of those situations where letting others know about it would probably be a bad idea. “Hope you enjoy” suggests it’s a present and for him alone.

He strolled around his bed, looking at it and swapping it from hand to hand, letting these thoughts swirl in his head. His mind was already made up, he leaned against the door to his quarters in case someone heard something and tried to come in. Raised the gun, flinching away from it, not knowing exactly what to expect and pulled the trigger.

A loud sound like material tearing was heard and a whirling bright white wormhole appeared. It seemed to produce its own energy to counterbalance the effect of diffusion, meaning nothing was being pulled into the portal. There was no wind, not even a gentle breeze. The normality of a hole leading somewhere, probably “another world” by Megan’s note made him more nervous than if pulling the trigger had sucked him through. He walked around the other side of the portal and it was transparent, he could see the door to his quarters. It was only visible from the side you could enter it from. He considered putting his hand through the wormhole from the other side just to see what would happen and then thought against it. It didn’t seem like something to be trifled with.

He looked back through it from the regular side and watched as it started to flicker slightly dimmer. It was weakening. He waited and the portal kind of fizzled out. Collapsing upon itself.

He put his hand over his mouth and rubbed his chin again. “Geez-us f***-ing…”

He opened the door and surveyed the hallway. Nothing. Apparently it hadn’t been loud enough to raise anyone’s attention. He closed the door again.

Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic.

This time the gentle sound didn’t help him any, because he’d already made his mind up.

Leaning against the door a second time, he pulled the trigger. The vertical white portal showed itself in roughly the same place as the last one.

He breathed deeply and stepped through.

And as the portal closed all that remained was the gentle ticking.

Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic.

__________________
[/JOKE]

16,18, not much difference mentally or physically. It's a number over there. Here however it's the difference between mid life crisis with hot chicks with daddy issues and pound me in the ass prison. - Anubis

More Anubis' greatest hits:
"Families are Gods way of teaching us to get along with people we don't particularly like."

A sound like material tearing can be heard and a portal opens up at 45 degrees on the fourth floor at a modest family home on McClane. A man in black lunges through the wormhole.

“--*****!” he exclaimed.

Unfortunately for the man, his scream was lengthy obscenity was cut short as he falls through the wormhole at that same 45 degrees, falling hard, face-first on the kitchen floor.

Fortunately for the man, the house takes on a familiar appearance. He recognises the tiles first, then the cabinets. Getting to his feet he also recognises the sofa in the living room, the microwave. And a familiar wooden block, full of kitchen knives. Whole and with all items intact. He slides one out just to be sure.

But something doesn’t feel right about this place.

“What… The… F***?!?” The man uttered, perplexed by this world, so similar to his own.

“Huh?”

“F***! F***! F***ity F***!” the words somehow felt different than they ever had before. Felt stilted. Less than whole. A look of hollow disappointment crossed his face.

Then he felt little bits of plastic trickle down the back of his pants. Reaching behind him he pulled a small bundle which had been stuffed down the back. Pages of paper, wrapped around a yellow object and secured by a rubber band. Presumably the same yellow object that brought him here in the first place, only now in considerably more broken parts.

“Aw s***.”

__________________
[/JOKE]

16,18, not much difference mentally or physically. It's a number over there. Here however it's the difference between mid life crisis with hot chicks with daddy issues and pound me in the ass prison. - Anubis

More Anubis' greatest hits:
"Families are Gods way of teaching us to get along with people we don't particularly like."